A complementary initiative to the highly successful Docs for Schools programme, Doc It! stimulates non-fiction filmmaking among youth, and provides a forum for their perspectives on their experiences and understandings of their world. All selected works are eligible to win juried prizes and the Doc It! Audience Award, determined by an audience ballot.

I was wondering how the people on my facebook list are connected to me, so I broke it down into categories. The blue portion of the bar represents people I have some connection with in real life, the brown represents people I've never met in person.

There were several cases of overlap, so I chose the most direct connection instead of representing it on the graph.

The result looks sensible. As usual, blogging leads because it is the internet, after all. I'm a little disappointed that I'm connected with more elementary and secondary school people than university people, because I'd really like to know what some of those people are up to.

I suspect that the unknowns are mostly blog-related, but I can't be sure because I have no idea who those people are. Usually I decline unknowns unless they have celebrities on their friends list. The more, the better.

This Beautiful City is a sharp-eyed, character–driven story about five disparate characters who become intrinsically connected after a woman plummets from the balcony of her downtown condo and is discovered by a drug-addicted prostitute, her newly clean boyfriend, and a cop.

Pink is an earlier short film by Gass-Donnelly, you can watch it right now.

All Hat - and a bag of chipsIs in post-production. I'll have stuff to show you from this one, later ...

... now, how the hell do you remake THAT? Is there even a contemporary filmmaker who can rise to that level of complete ridiculousness? One of the co-stars is a freakin' MIME. And another thing: what's the point? Back then, the film's titillation factor had some merit because the mainstream was pretty tame ... but now that we live in an online porn paradise, all that's going to seem kinda' lame. I think the only way it could work is by taking the Shortbus route and throw in some real sex. And have 70s-era Queen do the soundtrack.

This has led to a technical "cat and mouse" game, with Rogers now one of the only ISPs in the world to simply degrade encrypted traffic.

While P2P and torrents are still used to trade copyrighted material, more and more they're being used to distribute perfectly legit stuff like Star Trek New Voyages episodes and movies like Star Wreck (and the upcoming Nazis on the Moon flick, Iron Sky) as Geist points out in his article:

... not only is BitTorrent legal in Canada, but a growing percentage of the file swapping on BitTorrent clients is authorized. This includes a substantial amount of open source software development, independent films, and other large files. By reducing the bandwidth available for this application, Rogers is impairing the ability for Canadian artists to distribute their work and hampering the development of open source software in Canada. Moreover, this could lead to a situation where Rogers' own content is unfairly advantaged over competing content.

FlicksI Am Legend trailer looks like the film probably should be called I Am Waiting for the Inevitable Happy Ending. No hint of how the Luddite Hippie Vampires are going to be depicted. I'm imagining 28 Days Later meets I, Robot: they'll be able to run really fast but will act like hammy theatre students. Unlike the earlier adaptation which featured all ham and no running:

George Lucas co-wrote the script as part of his continuing quest to ruin every childhood memory you ever had.TubeThe new season of Doctor Who just started up on CBC. The new companion will make you forget all about Billie er 'wassername ...

I was a free mime in ParisI felt unfettered and aliveThere was nobody calling me up for a sandwichAnd no one's future to decideYou know I'd go back there tomorrowBut for the work I've taken onStoking the banana-maker machineryBetween the slices of bread!

There were complaints when I stopped posting the rotating banner image, so it's back. The layout's been adjusted a bit for widescreen monitors ... that will be an ongoing task as people continue to switch over. Will work out the bugs over the next few days ...

I've decided to stick ads on this blog. Over the past year, the blog has really withered, posting has stalled and the readership evaporated as other offline and online pursuits have grabbed my attention. The ads are going to be stuck on for a few months trial to see if some cashflow helps motivate me to post more than once every three weeks. If it works and I'm able to post more often, I'll keep them. If not, I will dump them and return to the status quo.

Several times, I've said that I would never put ads on the main page of my blog. My plan was to keep the main page as an ad-free fun spot and stick the ads on a bunchofotherpages. But that project bombed because I just don't have time to maintain five pages ... I can't even keep one going.

Fortunately, because all the readers have left, Maria and Eva are the only two people I have to worry about complaining. There will be a few other changes as well over the summer ... get ready!

Like I said earlier, it's a dumb protest against a good idea and a waste of time and energy. However I was wrong about the lack of consultation. It turns out that there was much more than the required amount of consulation (er ... apparently none is required for a project like this), including a public meeting. The opponents of the plan are now saying it wasn't enough ... Pfffffffftttttt. Right. Things gotta get done and you can consult for freaking ever on a small road project. Let's get those shovels in the ground ...

"Dr Campbell, is a former chief geologist and vice-president at a string of oil majors including BP, Shell, Fina, Exxon and ChevronTexaco. He explains that the peak of regular oil - the cheap and easy to extract stuff - has already come and gone in 2005. Even when you factor in the more difficult to extract heavy oil, deep sea reserves, polar regions and liquid taken from gas, the peak will come as soon as 2011, he says."

"In recent years the once-considerable gap between demand and supply has narrowed. Last year that gap all but disappeared. The consequences of a shortfall would be immense. If consumption begins to exceed production by even the smallest amount, the price of oil could soar above $100 a barrel. A global recession would follow."

I'm going to post the web version of the editorial cartoon in colour from now on. I'm also testing out a name for the new strip. I have a bunch of contenders ... maybe I will set up a poll and let Eva and Maria pick the name.

"The judicial process may have been improperly circumvented in this case," said City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. "This explanation is puzzling. Los Angeles County jail medical facilities are well-equipped to deal with medical situations involving inmates."